New Kids On The Block

Cheaper, faster, better.

Today’s world of media production is pretty dang frictionless.

Athletes are hosting podcasts from their living rooms. Media personalities and analysts are growing their influence and reach by hundreds of thousands of people through TikTok. Creator-led, built-on-Substack media businesses are receiving investment from the big leagues.

The former narrative gatekeepers—legacy print publishers and TV networks— have lost their grip as a result of the democratization that platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Substack, and X provide.

There’s been no shortage of talk around “new media” lately, and I’ve been paying attention to this shift for the past 2+ years. Here's how that shakeup is playing out in sports.

Athletes are increasingly going direct as creators – with podcasts and YouTube channels and newsletters – and this is hugely strategic for personal brand building. The St. Browns, Kittles and Kelces have podcasts that they produce during the season – this would have been unthinkable (and logistically infeasible) a decade ago!

People like Tom Brady and Kyler Murray have personal YouTube channels, allowing them to become the storytellers and giving fans long-form, authentic access. I have to admit some of TB12’s vlogs can be pretty entertaining.

Bryson Dechambeau achieved an incredible personal rebrand because of the way he leveraged his independent media to connect with the world. Long gone are the days when he was thought of as the obnoxious ‘Golf scientist’ who many fans loved to hate (I think getting jacked helped, too).

This new content wave feels very exciting and I’m all for it. That said, there are questions about sustainability, particularly around the athlete-produced format.

Saagar Enjeti had an interesting take on his recent appearance on TBPN. He argued there is a new media bubble in sports, citing that the major gambling companies (DraftKings and FanDuel) have propped up and effectively subsidized far too many people…many of whom have no business having their own shows.

He expects crackdown on the betting companies to trigger a culling of the herd, forcing a situation where only the top quality survives. He’s likely correct, though I believe it will be at least several more years before any sort of regulatory blowback begins to drain the pockets of the gambling giants. If and when that does happen, though, I think that would be natural and healthy for the sports media market.

The winners won’t be the loudest voices or the most prolific posters, but the operators with owned distribution, durable audience trust, and revenue streams that extend beyond ads. Those that convert attention into memberships, events, IP, and durable commercial partnerships will thrive.

A surge of media personalities under 40 are using their network jobs to build top-of-funnel exposure and credibility, but are making their biggest moves independently.

Take Adam Breneman, Max Browne, and RGIII as examples. Each works for CBS Sports, ESPN, and FOX Sports, respectively, but take their role as creators seriously. And it’s paying dividends in the form of sponsorships, content licensing deals, and promotions from their primary employers.

It’s now table stakes for on-air personalities to grow their own personal brands on the side. It allows them to carve out their own audience of personal superfans, which sets them up with optionality in the event that they one day want to go independent, as Pat McAfee did post-Barstool and pre-ESPN.

I could write an entire piece on the re-bundling cycle that’s likely to follow all this unbundling—but I’ll save that for another time.

I struggle to watch SportsCenter, NFL Live, or Good Morning Football anymore. The attempt to appease the full spectrum of viewers results in heavily diluted content. It’s not possible to satisfy the hardcore ball-knowers while simultaneously appealing to middle school kids getting their first taste of sports coverage.

Those trying to build the next generation of sports reporting/content for the masses need to find elements of differentiation. Overtime does this through vertical integration of owned leagues and IP paired with original merch and content formats that are satisfactory to Gen Z audiences. Almost Friday Media has built out multiple sports shows (Empty Netters, Glory Daze, Who’s Next) with viral short form-first content. Jomboy Media successfully threads the needle by leaning into the ‘fan on the couch’ voice while providing genuinely sharp analysis.

The same applies to written coverage. Companies like Bleacher Report and Yardbarker fall into this camp—relying on old-school digital advertising models, chasing page views through sheer volume, which makes for a newsy, short shelf-life product. Algorithm‑chasing content loops are structurally unsalvageable—not bad for mass information distribution, but not the business I want to be in.

The Athletic, Front Office Sports, and Sportico are authoritative, but new-yet-old media. Thorough and valuable for the ecosystem, but not persona-driven. Long-term staying power? Unclear unless they adapt.

SBJ turns 32 this year…I think it gets an OG pass. They’re classic, buttoned-up sports journalism with decades of earned credibility. A full remodel wouldn’t make sense for them—they’re entrenched in a positive way.

But outlets like FOS, The Athletic, and Sportico launched a few years too early to ride the creator wave, and built traditional models instead. This isn’t a knock on the journalism—it’s about the structure.

At risk of sounding like a broken record (get used to it)—Under the Number isn’t for casuals. It’s expert media for the Sports Economy.

The audience is high-value by design: decision-makers, not scrollers. The goal is signal.

The Sports Economy is led by a cocktail of figures—investors, executives, founders, media operators—and you can expect to hear from all of them on UTN.

I believe in the power of an elite network. I believe that relationships run the world. I believe that producing high-quality media opens doors to otherwise inaccessible opportunities.

Much more to come. 🫡

I’ll be publishing this newsletter every other Wednesday.

Stay tuned and share this with someone who should be paying attention to where the Sports Economy is headed.

 If you’re building, investing, or advising within the Sports Economy — please reach out!

Email: [email protected]

– Brent